What I Did for Love

She’d fallen in love with him.

All the blood rushed from her head. She absorbed the awful truth. Despite everything she knew, she had fallen in love with Bram Shepard, the self-absorbed, self-destructive bad boy who’d stolen her virginity, wrecked a television show, and nearly destroyed himself.

Bram glittered beneath the chandeliers, his burnished beauty and masculine elegance designed for the silver screen. She could barely breathe. Just as she was finally learning to be her own person, she’d sabotaged herself by falling in love with a man she couldn’t trust, a man she was paying to stay by her side. The breadth of the calamity made her dizzy.

He finished his speech, and they wheeled out the wedding cake, a multitiered wonder of icing lace and confectionary hydrangeas topped by a pair of Skip and Scooter dolls dressed in wedding finery. Bram fed her the first piece, getting only a dab of frosting on her lips, which he kissed away. She somehow managed to return the favor. The cake tasted like heartache.

Afterward, April drew her aside to change out of her magical crystal gown into the modified cameo-blue flapper dress they’d chosen for dancing. Georgie moved through the rest of the night in a flurry of perpetual motion, dancing and laughing, her hips moving, her hair stinging her cheeks.

She danced with Bram, who told her she looked beautiful and that he couldn’t wait to get her in bed. She danced with Trev and her girlfriends, with Jake Koranda, Aaron, and her father. She danced with her costars and Jack Patriot. She even danced with Dirk Duke. As long as her feet were moving, she didn’t have to think about how she would save herself.

Bram loomed over her as they stood in his foyer a little after two in the morning. His black bow tie hung loose at his neck, his shirt collar open. “What the hell do you mean, you’re sleeping in the guesthouse?”

Georgie was still a little drunk, but not so drunk that she didn’t know exactly what she had to do. She wanted to cry…or scream, but there’d be plenty of time for both later. “I have to audition for you on Tuesday afternoon, remember? Sleeping with you three nights before gives me an unfair advantage over the other actresses.”

“That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Somehow she managed to conjure up the sass of the old Georgie, the Georgie who’d once again fallen so stupidly in love. “Sorry, Skipper. I believe in fair play. It’d be on my conscience.”

“Fuck your conscience.” He pushed her against the wall at the base of the stairs and started kissing her. Deep, invasive kisses with a stubborn edge. Her toes curled in her shoes. He shoved his hand under the hem of her little blue flapper dress and nipped at the upper slope of her breast as it curved above the bodice. “You make me crazy,” he murmured against her damp skin.

She was dizzy with champagne, desire, and despair. He slipped his fingers inside panties so tiny and fragile they hardly counted as a garment. Stop. Don’t stop. The words bounced in her head as his kisses grew more insistent and his touch so intimate she couldn’t bear it.

“Enough,” he said, and he swept her up in his arms.

The theme music swelled. Strains of Dr. Zhivago and Titanic, An Affair to Remember and Out of Africa enfolded them as he carried her up the stairs in the most romantic gesture ever, except it was two in the morning, and he banged his elbow against the door as he crossed the threshold.

But it took him only a moment to recover. He set her on the edge of the bed, tugged at her clothes, and it was like the first time on the boat all over again. Her naked hips at the edge of the mattress. Her dress pushed up to her waist. His clothing scattered. And herself stupidly in love with a man who didn’t love her back.

It was like the first time…and it wasn’t. After the initial breathless assault, he slowed down-loving her with his touch, his mouth, his sex, with everything but his heart. And she let herself love him back. Just this one last time.

Something faintly inquisitive flickered in his eyes as he gazed into her own. He sensed a change in her but couldn’t figure out what it was. Their pleasure surged, the music rose to a crescendo in her head, and the camera pulled back. She closed her eyes and rode with him into oblivion.

As she lay curled against his shoulder, her despair resurfaced. This self-destruction had to stop. “So when did you fall in love with me?” she said.

“The instant I set eyes on you,” he replied drowsily. “No, wait…That was me. The first time I looked in a mirror.”

“No, really.”

He yawned and kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep.”

She lumbered on. “I’ve been getting this feeling…”

“What feeling?”

He was wide-awake now and suspicious, but she needed to know for sure exactly where she stood. This was too important for them to suffer some kind of sitcom misunderstanding that could be set straight with a few words. “A feeling that you’re in love with me.”

He sat up, dumping her unceremoniously. “Of all the stupid-you know exactly how I feel about you.”

“Not really. You’re more sensitive than you pretend to be, and you hide a lot.”

“I’m not one bit sensitive.” He glared down at her. “You want to rub it in, don’t you? What I said at the party.”

She couldn’t remember what he’d said at the party, so she curled her lip at him. “Of course I want to rub it in. So say it again.”

He released an exasperated sigh and lay back in the pillows. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Go ahead and laugh. Believe me, I never expected it to work out that way.”

His best friend…She swallowed. “I don’t know why. I’m a very likable person.”

“You’re a nut bar. In a million years I’d never have imagined you’d be the person I trusted most.”

And she didn’t trust him at all. Except about this. He was telling the truth about his feelings for her. “What about Chaz? She’d take a bullet for you.”

“Okay, you’re the second most trustworthy person I know.”

“That’s better.” She told herself to let it go, but she had to try. One more time. “It could really screw us up”- she sighed, as if this were all too tedious-“if you turned into an idiot and decided to fall in love-”

“Jesus, Georgie, will you give it a rest? Nobody’s in love with anybody.”

“If you’re sure…?”

“I’m sure.”

“That’s a relief. Now stop talking so I can go to sleep.”

Her leg cramped, but she didn’t dare move until she heard the deep, even sound of his breathing. Only then did she ease out of bed. She slipped into the first thing she touched, his abandoned tuxedo shirt, and crept downstairs. Her father had gone back to his condo, leaving the guesthouse empty once again. She padded along the cold stone path, tears trickling down her cheeks. If she kept making love with him, she’d have to pretend it was only sex. She’d have to perform for him, just as she performed for the cameras.

She couldn’t do it. Not for him. Not for herself. Not ever again.

Chapter 24

Bram arrived late for Georgie’s audition, and Hank Peters’s cool nod indicated he wasn’t happy about it. Bram knew they were all waiting for him to fall back into his old, unreliable habits, but he’d been legitimately delayed by a call from one of the partners at Endeavor. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to explain-he’d spewed out too many bullshit excuses in the past-and he merely offered a short apology. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Although no one said it to his face, they all thought having Georgie read for them today was a waste of time. But he owed her an audition, no matter how much he hated being part of something that, in the end, would devastate her.

“Let’s get to work,” Hank said.